Current case is an Antec 900 with a nice bundle of fans. And a NICE Scythe Samurai cpu heatsink, good enough that even if the fan on it fails, my overclocked cpu will still not overheat.And that even though it couldn´t even be optimally mounted ( had to mount it 90 degree shifted ).

And passive cooling on the gfx card, in part chosen because the cooling is so darn good, the card tends to have lower temps than other 6770s with active cooling.

Compare to my friend, who once bought IBM Deskstar GXP 60 HDDs, and despite me thoroughly telling him to get at least SOME case cooling did not, and half a year later, first HDD died. His replacement drive died after a year.

His system overall at the time eventually had to be cooled with a bigassed tablefan against an open case side, because the poor cooling over several years had caused serious hardware degradation.

This has been an objective and completely impartial message from the propaganda bureau of DIREWOLF75. Thank you for reading. Have a nice day.

Why am I spending $19 on these fans instead of cheaper $10 fans? Simple, these are QUIET and last forever, or nearly forever!! Worth every penny...

I don't buy the most expensive cpu cooler, nor am I interested in liquid cooling just to get a few extra Mhz ( mainly due to expense of liquid cooling kits, although they are becoming more affordable these days ). I just buy good midrange stuff ( cpu cooler and case fans ) within my budget and that keeps me happy. If I was rich then of course I would probably have top of the line watercooling etc etc. However I am happy enough with my rig for the time being.

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least. No good deed goes unpunished...

I also take cooling very seriously. Never experienced a component failure apart from a PSU and a (abused) VGA card in the past 12 years.

My main system is built inside a Coolermaster CM 690 II, chosen for it's incredible ventilation capabilities... and very low price ($69). I'm using five Noctua NF-P14 (140mm with filter) as intake and three Noctua NF-P12 as outake. Works wonder to cool the Crossfired 7970 with the case front & top meshed parts.

I'm using a Corsair H100 (with NF-P12) at the moment, but don't feel comfortable with it. A pump failure could have unpleasant consequences!!! I prefer using my Noctua NH-D14. Both offer equal performance but the NH-D14 is worry free and operates in total silent.

I only have good words for Noctua fans. They look... strange... cost more but are near silent, provide great static pressure and have outlived every other fans I've used so far. The same goes for Gelid fans.

I've never delivered a PC using the stock cooler. I used to include a Scythe Mugen cooler ($30) at the time and now I use the Coolermaster Hyper 212evo ($25) that works very well considering its price. I also pay attention to the thermal paste I use, it really makes a remarkable difference at low cost.

Agreed, the Coolermaster CM 690 II is also an excellent case for a very low price!

I see that you need all those case fans to keep dual 7970's nice and chillin...

Noctua NH-D14 is still one of the very best ( if not still "The Best" ) cpu air cooler on the market. My OCZ Vendetta 2 comes close, but for extreme overclocking it can't match the NH-D14 ( 140mm fan vs 120mm fan, no contest really ). I am still happy with my OCZ cooler, it works as good as the day I bought it 5 years ago...just blow the dust out of it from time to time and it runs near silently...great fan they put on it!! Cheers.

The Hyper 212 cooler ( similar in size and performance to my OCZ cooler I paid $50 for years ago ) is the best cooler in its price range of just $25!! Nothing comes close to it for $25... I built a few systems with these, work perfectly!! Best value decent performance cooler for that price methinks...

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least. No good deed goes unpunished...

I used to have huge problems until I fitted a Corsair H series cooler on the CPU which vented the CPU outside the case . . . I even doubled up the fans on that and not only do I get much better CPU temps, but things like the GPU temps are much lower too . . . Well worth it

You don't have to be a megalomaniac to moderate this forum . . . but it helps!1123.6536.5321 - More than a number, it's our home!

I presume you mean CPU stock cooler? I don't even know why they include such things..

Indeed, I was talking about CPU stock cooler. That Scythe Mugen 2 of yours left a very strong impression. Great performance compared to my good old Thermalright True at 1/3 of the price. Today's Mugen Rev 3 seems only available through Ebay for around $75

I have a very efficient 120mm fan on my heatsink, does a great over all job on the CPU. I have high cfm fans. 2-200mm fans.. one intake and one exhaust. I gotthe Corsair Case, it had some crummy 200mm fans. I replaced them with better fans. Providing better air flow.

I presume you mean CPU stock cooler? I don't even know why they include such things..

Indeed, I was talking about CPU stock cooler. That Scythe Mugen 2 of yours left a very strong impression. Great performance compared to my good old Thermalright True at 1/3 of the price. Today's Mugen Rev 3 seems only available through Ebay for around $75

Over the past five years we've seen multiple elite coolers from Noctua, Thermalright, and Prolimatech trading blows for the high performance heatsink crown. Scythe has for the most part avoided this arms race, focusing on smaller niche products, even though they were one of the manufacturers that really kick-started the big tower cooler market. It's been a long time since one of their heatsinks truly delivered top tier performance — I'm happy to proclaim that now. I thought Scythe might be falling in the footsteps of crestfallen old guard cooling companies like Zalman and Thermaltake, but the latest Mugen is a new hope. The fourth iteration Mugen is a vital modern update that returns Scythe to some much needed relevance in this space.

In our lab, heatsinks with convex bases have repeatedly outperformed their flat or concave base competition, and Scythe has finally followed suit. The new mounting system is also a much needed improvement, generating more pressure/contact while also being easier to install than the Mugen-2. It's not an original design, but has been proven to be highly effective. These factors rank high among the reasons for the new Mugen's exceptional performance. The last bit that ties everything together is the superbly smooth Glide Stream 120 fan. Many heatsinks simply don't ship with a decent sounding stock fan (even premier coolers from Prolimatech and Thermalright) but with Scythe, you can almost count on it.

The Mugen 4 is currently selling for between £35 and £40. The pricing I've quoted is in GBP because Scythe lost its official North American distributor awhile back, thus the bulk of their products are now primarily sold in countries across Europe and Asia. I found a couple of US retailers selling the Mugen 3, so it's possible they might get the latest version in sometime in the future. Availability is the biggest issue facing the Mugen 4; depending on where you live, it might simply not be an option.

One good alternative is the Thermalright HR-02 Macho. Another thick, single fan cooler with bare unplated heatpipes and fins, the HR-02 has a similar price and cooling capabilities. The HR-02 is a more versatile cooler as it benefits more from a second fan, its wider fin spacing is more conducive to passive cooling, and its asymmetrical design alleviates any possible RAM interference issues. The Mugen 4's primary advantage is its splendid fan which is a big step up from the HR-02's muddy-sounding TY-140. The Mugen is also slightly lighter and slimmer. You can't really go wrong with either as both are more cost and size effective alternatives to the beastly £60+ dual fan coolers that currently dominate the top-end of the market.

Our thanks to Scythe for the Mugen 4 CPU cooler sample.

Scythe Mugen 4 receives the SPCR Editor's Choice Award

Too bad that Scythe lost their official North American Distributor, they make awesome products!! I can't even find this new cooler on newegg site...a shame...

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least. No good deed goes unpunished...

I am a fan of the stock - aka el cheapo - as I do not overclock or push the system too much. well i use laptop mostly now and only push the cpu and memory... the gpu, 460m, gets to sleep for most part if not forever.

A little earlier today, the U.S. branch of Scythe posted a message saying it decided to leave the U.S. market because its parent company halted operations. This spread confusion, with many believing that Scythe was ending operations everywhere. That is false. Not only is Scythe not ending operations everywhere, but it's not leaving the U.S. market, either. With the U.S. office closed for the night, other regional distributors such as Scythe EU swung into action, and allayed concerns.

According to Scythe's EU office in Germany, Scythe U.S. is undergoing "restructuring," with the company likely changing its U.S. distributor, and letting the Taiwan office run things in the interim. With all other branches of Scythe, including EU, Japan, China, and Taiwan, it's business as usual. It's likely that U.S. buyers won't even feel the transition, as it might complete before inventories begin to dry up. Scythe specializes in a range of enthusiast PC components, such as coolers, fans, PSUs, and accessories.

So, apparently, Scythe US is undergoing "restructuring" right now. I hope that means the new Mugen 4 cooler will soon appear on Newegg ( in both USA and Canada of course! ).

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least. No good deed goes unpunished...

I'm using old Chieftech cases with the side panels on them and nothing gets hot, if something ever does I'll put a cppl holes in the top to let air out with low rpm exhaust fans but in this day and age with Intel CPU's rarely hitting 125 watts and even AMD's CPU's with the power they are pushing ..... I just don't see the need like it was back when GPU's just tossed air around in the case and ram go hot along with the hard drive.

my GPU exhausts out the back, my SSD doesn't generate enough heat to consider and so far the cpu even when being pushed with a synthetic bench just doesn't care.

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

A little earlier today, the U.S. branch of Scythe posted a message saying it decided to leave the U.S. market because its parent company halted operations. This spread confusion, with many believing that Scythe was ending operations everywhere. That is false. Not only is Scythe not ending operations everywhere, but it's not leaving the U.S. market, either. With the U.S. office closed for the night, other regional distributors such as Scythe EU swung into action, and allayed concerns.

According to Scythe's EU office in Germany, Scythe U.S. is undergoing "restructuring," with the company likely changing its U.S. distributor, and letting the Taiwan office run things in the interim. With all other branches of Scythe, including EU, Japan, China, and Taiwan, it's business as usual. It's likely that U.S. buyers won't even feel the transition, as it might complete before inventories begin to dry up. Scythe specializes in a range of enthusiast PC components, such as coolers, fans, PSUs, and accessories.

So, apparently, Scythe US is undergoing "restructuring" right now. I hope that means the new Mugen 4 cooler will soon appear on Newegg ( in both USA and Canada of course! ).

That's good news for the people there!

We never think of us as being one of Them. We are always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

if something ever does I'll put a cppl holes in the top to let air out with low rpm exhaust fans.

That's what I had to do a while back with my old Ultra Aluminus case. I pierced a hole in the bottom and top of the case to help with the heat build-up. I was running an Opteron 180 and GeForce SLI 7900 GTO. Made a difference but was still having overheat issues during experimentation. In the end, I used a 4' isolated duck to bring cold air strait from one of the heat pump duct. It was enough to cool the computer and my beer!

I was young at the time, never lacked sleep, no childrens and so much more hairs...